NOT TAKING ACCOUNT OF SPECIAL FACTORS OF TEACHERS
Mr. Tran Van Thuc, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa, where a mountainous district recently had to suspend some subjects due to a shortage of teachers, shared: The situation of local teacher surplus and shortage is increasingly serious, one of the basic reasons is that educational management agencies are not proactive. Meanwhile, the general regulations on recruiting civil servants are not really suitable for the specific professional activities of teachers.
Delegating the right to recruit teachers to the education sector will limit the current problems of local teacher surplus and shortage.
PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH
According to Mr. Thuc, the decentralization of recruitment and use of teaching staff still has many shortcomings because in most localities, the specialized agency, the Department of Education and Training, is not the leading unit or focal point for teacher recruitment, so it cannot be proactive in regulating the number and structure of staff by subject and grade level, and cannot proactively regulate the surplus or shortage of teachers among administrative units in the area.
“The consequences of this problem are clearly shown in the implementation of the 2018 General Education Program. The National Assembly Standing Committee has organized supervision and found that localities cannot recruit teachers and cannot organize the teaching of some subjects,” Mr. Thuc stated.
Sharing the same view, Mr. Thai Van Thanh, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An, said that teachers and the teaching profession have their own characteristics, different from civil servants in other sectors and fields. The purpose of pedagogical work is to develop the qualities and abilities of learners, the objects of pedagogical work are learners whose personalities are being formed and developed, the products of pedagogical work are comprehensively developed learners...
PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICE IN RECRUITMENT IS VERY NEEDED
According to Mr. Thai Van Thanh, there should be recruitment regulations that are appropriate to the specific nature of pedagogical labor. Recruitment focuses on professional competence, expertise, skills and especially pedagogical practice. That ensures the recruitment of quality teachers, suitable for job positions, professional structures and subjects. Educational management agencies and educational institutions are in charge of managing staff, recruiting and using teachers, which helps educational management agencies proactively develop plans and strategies for developing the teaching staff, meeting the needs of fundamental and comprehensive innovation in education and training. At the same time, it solves the existing problems and shortcomings in quality, the current situation of surplus and shortage of teachers in localities.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Hong, Principal of Chuong Duong Secondary School (Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi), said: “Pedagogical practice, that is, teaching is the final step and the decisive step for the recruiting agency to understand the knowledge, pedagogical capacity, ability to impart, creativity, enthusiasm, handwriting, emotions in the voice and face of the candidate. These are all important factors that contribute to creating a good teacher in the future.”
Ms. Phan Thi Hang Hai, Principal of Kim Ngoc High School (Vinh Phuc), affirmed that the form of pedagogical practice is a way for the recruiting unit to evaluate not only the professional knowledge, but also the skills and ability to apply teaching methods in practice of the candidate. However, it is necessary to develop a set of specific and transparent evaluation criteria, not according to the feelings of each recruiting unit.
Discussing at the National Assembly hall about the draft Law on Teachers recently, delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh (Lam Dong delegation) also said that the recruitment of teachers must ensure pedagogical practice, in order to select people with the capacity to meet the professional activities of teachers according to each level of education and training level... One of the weaknesses of the Vietnamese education sector is that it is too heavy on theory, while weak in practice and reality, requiring lecturers to have practical experience will bring many great benefits to the education sector.
Delegate Nguyen Anh Tri (Hanoi delegation) stated: “The regulation on delegating the right to recruit teachers to the education sector is very important. During our monitoring and surveying process, we heard voters talk a lot about this. In fact, the whole country is lacking nearly 114,000 teachers, while there are still 64,000 surplus positions. So, the problem is not just a lack of people but an imbalance, lack of uniformity, inconsistency, and lack of understanding in the recruitment process.”
According to experts, teacher recruitment needs to focus on professional competence, expertise, skills and especially pedagogical practice.
PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH
PROPOSAL FOR SCHOOL TO RECRUIT TEACHERS, SUPERVISION MANAGEMENT AGENCY
Mr. Pham Anh Tuan, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ha Nam, envisioned: If given the right to proactively recruit and use teachers, the education sector would be able to proactively transfer teachers from one educational institution to another, from one district to another... This would avoid the current problem, where in the same province, one district has a surplus of teachers, another district has a shortage of teachers, but the sector cannot transfer them, leading to the situation of local surplus and shortage for many years that has not been thoroughly resolved.
Speaking at a meeting on this issue, Mr. Vu A Bang, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Dien Bien province, pointed out many shortcomings in the state management of teachers. In particular, the education sector is assigned the total payroll while the recruitment authority belongs to the internal affairs agency. The Department of Education and Training directly manages the staff, teachers and students of high schools, ethnic boarding schools in the area, the remaining levels of education are under the functions and tasks of the district-level Department of Education and Training, which is directly managed by the district-level People's Committee. Therefore, the education sector is not proactive in allocating, mobilizing, and arranging the use (recruitment, secondment...) of the payroll of teachers, especially teachers at secondary, primary and preschool levels to carry out annual tasks among localities in the province.
According to Mr. Bang, this leads to a contradiction, although the education sector is responsible for quality, it cannot mobilize or rotate the teaching staff due to its management authority, as well as current policies. Therefore, it is necessary to decentralize the management of the teaching staff and educational management staff to ensure consistency in the recruitment, use and management of teachers from the central to local levels.
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh, former Director of the Department of Vocational Education (Ministry of Education and Training), expressed his opinion: When educational management agencies are assigned responsibility and initiative in recruiting and using teachers, the education sector can more clearly identify the needs, goals and necessary measures to develop the teaching staff in the direction of best meeting the requirements of the education system.
Regarding the regulation on decentralization of teacher management, Mr. Vinh said that it is necessary but this also needs to be studied and assessed for its impact on the capacity of the state management agency assigned with the responsibility. It is necessary to emphasize the role and responsibility of public educational institutions to proactively recruit teachers with the view that it must be associated with responsibility.
“Otherwise, the previous administrative bureaucracy and negativity could very well be transferred to the local education management agency – the school’s superior. Therefore, it is advisable to let the school recruit teachers and take responsibility, while the management agency only participates in monitoring and planning recruitment based on the school’s needs,” said Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh.
Increase the professional element in training and recruitment
Talking to the press about this issue, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son affirmed: The orientation of the law is to increase professional and quality factors in both teacher training and recruitment. This will lead to tighter and more substantial management and teachers will feel more comfortable and free in their professional activities and have more conditions to develop themselves and contribute to the profession.
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